


I Was Never Meant To Be Alone

by HkHk



Series: Skyguy and Snips [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan picks up the Pieces, All My Friends Are Dead and I can't Lose You Too, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin falls, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Post-Order 66, Post-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suitless Darth Vader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HkHk/pseuds/HkHk
Summary: "Snips." The image is grainy and blue. Ahsoka almost thinks that his eyes are the same, not the bloodshot yellow of a feared enemy. He looks terrible, even if the resolution of the video was atrocious Ahsoka could see the bags under his eyes, the lines at the edges. "If you're seeing this message, I'm probably dead.""And that's fine. It's more than I deserve." Anakin is sitting, deathly still, upright only by the virtue of a wall propping him up. "Hopefully it's quick. I'd hate to burn alive on the slope of a volcano."
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Skyguy and Snips [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/449683
Comments: 7
Kudos: 95





	I Was Never Meant To Be Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Anakin falls with his eyes wide open. He risks everything and nearly loses it all. 
> 
> This is a story about guilt and love and redemption. And there is a twist!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka wants her brothers to be alive and well.

Anakin comes to slowly, his right arm felt like it was on fire and his left was being clutched tightly. Dully, he realizes that his head hurts. There is a throbbing sensation in the back of his head like he hit something hard. Most likely got thrown and he bounced like an errant rock. He could smell the sharp coppery smell of blood and it coaxes him into something resembling wakefulness. Something wet drips onto his face and it makes him look up, his eyes felt heavy in his head and the blurry image before him doubles before focusing. 

It's Obi-Wan. He's clutching Anakin's left arm and there's blood dripping from his face onto him. He looks utterly unkempt his perfectly combed hair askew and his beard bushy. He's saying something, his mouth was moving but Anakin just couldn't hear anything. Just a dull ringing noise. 

Anakin looks down and blanches at the lava that bubbles under his feet. 

Obi-Wan is shouting again, well, more like pleading. Anakin's left hand is slipping and, after a cursory glance, his right arm is gone. Again. 

HIs lightsaber was missing too. 

Damn. Obi-Wan was going to kill him. 

It takes a minute but between the two of them, Anakin drags himself back up onto the platform. He stumbles into Obi-Wan and they lean against each other. Anakin's arm slips under Obi-Wan's arm propping him up. His master looked dead on his feet , his robes streaked in black and with lightsaber burns. Who hurt him? What happened? Obi-Wan is growing paler and paler and his eyes roll to the back of his head and suddenly Anakin is supporting all of Obi-Wan's weight on one arm. He guides his unconscious master onto the ground and carefully leads him into a healing trance. 

Touching the Force required focus, more than he could have given it at the time. He had a roaring headache and he felt tired. As if he went five rounds with Master Windu without stopping. But he was used to ignoring his own pain, compartmentalizing it and shoving it away until he had time to address his wounds. Aside from his missing arm and some bruising, he was fine. They must have stumbled upon a mine and took the explosion head on. It would explain the hearing loss and the feeling of his bones being rattled. 

The Force whispered to him and he looks up. There is another platform some meters ahead and he could see the flashes of lightsabers and feel the storm of other force users.

He had to help. Obi-Wan would be fine here as much as he would loathe to leave his master behind. The Force was urging him to help. 

Anakin looked around and spotted, some meters away a familiar silver hilt. He summons Obi-Wan's lightsaber into his hand and turns it on, the blue light shimmering into view. 

"I'll be back." Anakin promises and he leaps, the Force humming in his blood. 

* * *

_Some time later...._

Ahsoka walked through the halls of the Temple marred by blaster fire and she couldn't help but wonder, if she had stayed would this had happened? They had recovered all the bodies and the funerals were being planned but there was a heaviness in the air. The Emperor was dead and the Empire toppled but its marks was felt everywhere. While the Empire itself had died in its infancy, it had lasted long enough to cause more than enough problems for the returning Senators and for Interim Chancellor Organa. The Council and those able were finding Jedi and recalling the clones, attempting to corall what was left of their family. 

"Commander?" Ahsoka looks up at Rex's concerned face and she huffs. "I'm fine Rex. Just...thinking." 

Captain Rex nods his steely eyes giving nothing away. She could guess what he was feeling. The 501st marched on the Jedi Temple and if he hadn't gone with her to Mandalore, he would have been here, attacking the Jedi. Initially she wasn't sure if he wanted to go with her but he did. "If you say so sir." 

"I'm fine. Really." They were descending further inside the Temple towards the more fortified areas. It was here that the Jedi defended the younglings and the infirmed, dispersing into the underbelly of Coruscant itself. If it weren't for Master Kenobi, they wouldn't have been prepared. It could have been a lot worse. 

Everyone could have died instead of some. 

"Have you been seeing a mind healer?" Rex wasn't giving up. 

"Have you?" Ahsoka shot back, giving the Temple Guards a nod as they reached the cells. She was a knight in all but name now. 

"Been busy." He said gruffly. "I have the other vode to look after." 

She gently elbows him in the side. "Hey. You gotta take care of yourself too." 

"I do. Are you sure you want to do this?" Rex stops some feet away from their destination. "He nearly killed you. Multiple times." 

Ahsoka knows this. She was the one running for her life from planet to planet, from system to system, chased by the ghost of her former master. He had nearly caught her a few times with her slipping past his grasp at the last minute. She knew what he would do to her. She'd seen them, the Inquisitors. With the Emperor dead their number one mission is to bring back these traumatized Jedi back. There is hope that they could be rehabilitated. Master Cere was having some success with her old padawan but it was touch and go. Ahsoka wasn't sure if she would have held out as long. Even Jedi had limits and the Sith knew how to break them. 

At least she got to kill the Grand Inquisitor. She couldn't believe one of their protectors turned against them. 

"Rex, I'll be fine. I have to talk to him. Master Obi-Wan is still in a medicated coma and-" Ahsoka takes a breath and then another, steadying her fluttering heart. "I need to know. I have to know." 

She needed to know if her master was still there or if the Dark Side had swallowed him up completely. 

"Are you sure the answers will help?" 

Ahsoka doesn't answer. They both knew what the truth meant and how it burns. It was easier to believe in lies. She dismisses the Temple Guards and they take their positions by the door, just in case. Ahsoka peers into the room past the ray shields. It was a cell meant to keep Force Sensitives. They were keeping him here until the High Council decides what to do with him. She takes a deep breath and turns the ray shields off. 

Her old master sat on a bench, looking like he hadn't moved since they drumped him there. His dark clothes were soot stained and he looked- Ahsoka's eyes met his gold ones and she flinched. He was unarmed and he was also missing an arm. Should he attack, she would be able to defend herself and Rex was there too. He wouldn't get far even if he managed to defeat her and the Temple Guards. 

"Hello Anakin." Ahsoka took a step inside the cell. She had never called him by his Sith name and she made it a point. 

From here she could see his unnatural stillness. Her master had always been on the move. Meditation for him was a sore point and a bit of a joke between them. She had taken after Anakin than Obi-Wan no matter how much her grandmaster had tried to teach her. Being on the run had taught her how to regulate her energy and the value of stillness. It had saved her life multiple times when she hide from clone patrols. However, seeing it in her old master was strange. He was pale, his hair dark and oily. The stump of his right arm was stark, wrapped with gauze but aside from that, he didn't look like he received any sort of medical care. That or he refused like a stubborn bantha. 

A mix of concern and dismay flooded her mind and she subtly poked at his force signature, trying to see where he was hurt. 

It must have shown on her face as Anakin cracks a small grin. "I'm fine." He grunts as he sits up and she could see the stiffness in his shoulder and the ginger way he protects his ribs. The dried blood on his face has browned and cracked. 

"No. You're not." Ahsoka's fingers curl into a fist as she vents her frustration into the Force. She steps forward quickly and swats him, a gentle tap on the shoulder that they used to exchange that now makes Anakin crumble. She sees it then, as he falls forward, the fresh smear of red blood on the wall and stain on his back. She swears and coms for a healer for an assist. 

Ahsoka drags him to a sitting position unbuttoning his black shirt. She rips his Imperial uniform exposing his back. What she sees makes her hiss. His ribs were a mess of purple and green bruises, no doubt they were cracked but his back. During the Clone Wars, Ahsoka had fought her master, and often times he would go shirtless. He had some scars and some freshly healed ones. Jedi had access to bacta which enhanced healing and she was sure the Sith would have given him the best but the mess that was his back clearly debunked that theory. His back was scored with fractal lightning scars. The kind one would get when being hit with Force Lightning. The fern like scars covered his upper and lower back, his shoulders, and parts of his chest. 

The source of the bleeding was a cut, deep enough to bleed slowly and continuously. 

Ahsoka ripped a piece of Anakin's ruined shirt and pressed it against the wound. "Don't die on me you ugly son of a hutt." It was kinder than calling him everything else under the sun. 

All Anakin did was breathe and wait, like a doll whose strings has been cut. How deep was Palpatine's influence that his death left him so bereft? How deep was his loyalty? How much was left of her old master? 


End file.
